Lust, Caution

In 2007, Ang Lee set out to “create a Tony Leung you’ve never seen before,” and his Mr. Yee in Lust, Caution is exactly that: a high-ranking collaborator responsible for torture and executions, whose terrifying aura of power registers in the smallest gestures and an inscrutable gaze. Against the shifting backdrop of Japanese-occupied Hong Kong and Shanghai, a student resistance cell recruits shy actress Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei) to infiltrate Yee’s circle as “Mrs. Mak,” using seduction to draw him into a trap she reprises years later when an assassination plot is finally set in motion. Lee turns mahjong games, shopping trips, and tea-room small talk into slow-burn suspense, ignited in scenes of brutal intimacy and sudden bloodshed. Leung’s performance—a master class in control—loads every glance into an expression that might be a test, or a threat, in this exacting, sensuous espionage tragedy that remains as seductive as it is devastating. Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.